My husband and I have always considered ourselves diehard New Orleanians, but even we have to think of the longterm. Homeowner's insurance is crushing us. Taxes are high and it's easy to wonder what it's going towards. Political leadership has been missing for a long, long time. As the state grows more conservative, it feels more hostile even in our progressive bubble. And as climate change intensifies, it's hard not to wonder when another hurricane will lay the city low.
Yes, we need our city and state officials to support the ecosystem but it also starts with community. We need to move past the “gatekeeping” culture of this city and learn how to work together and amplify each other.
Amen. You’re providing an important part of the medicine captain. Keep the people who don’t live in New Orleans and are an important part of the ecosystem involved, engaged and honest. All oars rowing in the right direction.
I agree with the sentiment of the article, and I think the proposed changes are thoughtful and potentially impactful. I’ve heard some of this before, and these are real issues New Orleans must address if it wants to be not just future-ready, but also competitive right now for entrepreneurs and job seekers.
But none of it will matter unless the people with the power to drive change actually listen and take action. I say this as someone currently job hunting and hoping to stay here. Unfortunately, it’s starting to feel like that may not be possible.
Part of the answer is to swap out the variables in the equation you sketch. Two examples: 1) Accept that the city's better public schools mean that private school tuition is not mandatory. My daughter graduated from a New Orleans public school and I hope to send my young boys to some too. 2) Embrace fortified building standards as a means of lowering insurance premiums. The paper just reported on new housing construction locally that's being built to the Fortified Gold IIBHS standard; premiums are coming back between $1,600 to $1,800 year (that INCLUDES wind and hail coverage). I personally have installed a Fortified Roof and tweaked my insurance coverage, lowering my monthly note from nearly $2,600/mo to just over $1,700/mo (my mortgage note more than doubled between 2022 and 2024, due to insurance costs soaring). I have yet to complete a wind survey, but that should further lower my premium. To be sure individual actions cannot overcome our region's ancient built environment (by American standards), minuscule scale and negligible momentum. I'm not sure we can be a hotspot for startups. Clear-eyed aspirational thinking is needed, as I note here: https://gentillyguy.substack.com/p/why-some-cities-grow-and-others-dont
'Great job distilling these issues Tim! I agree with your numbers and really feel them as an entrepreneur with relatively little overhead. I happen to have limited resources that allow me to tough it out for the near future . . . but I understand that many will need to make this tough choice sooner or later; to stay, or go to greener pastures. I agree that we need to make the area more attractive to entrepreneurs in the personal finance sense. Let's get to work!
New Orleans was blessed with over a decade of investment along with an influx of smart, talented, motivated people after the storm. Instead of welcoming these folks in, "locals" vilified them as opportunist gentrifiers while wearing vagina hats in the French Quarter. Now, many of them are gone. The city's priorities were completely backward, and we haven fallen into a rut with no end in site.
My husband and I have always considered ourselves diehard New Orleanians, but even we have to think of the longterm. Homeowner's insurance is crushing us. Taxes are high and it's easy to wonder what it's going towards. Political leadership has been missing for a long, long time. As the state grows more conservative, it feels more hostile even in our progressive bubble. And as climate change intensifies, it's hard not to wonder when another hurricane will lay the city low.
This is an important conversation to have.
Yes, we need our city and state officials to support the ecosystem but it also starts with community. We need to move past the “gatekeeping” culture of this city and learn how to work together and amplify each other.
Amen. You’re providing an important part of the medicine captain. Keep the people who don’t live in New Orleans and are an important part of the ecosystem involved, engaged and honest. All oars rowing in the right direction.
I agree with the sentiment of the article, and I think the proposed changes are thoughtful and potentially impactful. I’ve heard some of this before, and these are real issues New Orleans must address if it wants to be not just future-ready, but also competitive right now for entrepreneurs and job seekers.
But none of it will matter unless the people with the power to drive change actually listen and take action. I say this as someone currently job hunting and hoping to stay here. Unfortunately, it’s starting to feel like that may not be possible.
Part of the answer is to swap out the variables in the equation you sketch. Two examples: 1) Accept that the city's better public schools mean that private school tuition is not mandatory. My daughter graduated from a New Orleans public school and I hope to send my young boys to some too. 2) Embrace fortified building standards as a means of lowering insurance premiums. The paper just reported on new housing construction locally that's being built to the Fortified Gold IIBHS standard; premiums are coming back between $1,600 to $1,800 year (that INCLUDES wind and hail coverage). I personally have installed a Fortified Roof and tweaked my insurance coverage, lowering my monthly note from nearly $2,600/mo to just over $1,700/mo (my mortgage note more than doubled between 2022 and 2024, due to insurance costs soaring). I have yet to complete a wind survey, but that should further lower my premium. To be sure individual actions cannot overcome our region's ancient built environment (by American standards), minuscule scale and negligible momentum. I'm not sure we can be a hotspot for startups. Clear-eyed aspirational thinking is needed, as I note here: https://gentillyguy.substack.com/p/why-some-cities-grow-and-others-dont
'Great job distilling these issues Tim! I agree with your numbers and really feel them as an entrepreneur with relatively little overhead. I happen to have limited resources that allow me to tough it out for the near future . . . but I understand that many will need to make this tough choice sooner or later; to stay, or go to greener pastures. I agree that we need to make the area more attractive to entrepreneurs in the personal finance sense. Let's get to work!
New Orleans was blessed with over a decade of investment along with an influx of smart, talented, motivated people after the storm. Instead of welcoming these folks in, "locals" vilified them as opportunist gentrifiers while wearing vagina hats in the French Quarter. Now, many of them are gone. The city's priorities were completely backward, and we haven fallen into a rut with no end in site.
Very sad, but this is not new. Are they leaving the State or the city?